


Temper Tantrums

by ValkerieRupert



Series: Autistic Steven Universe Headcanons [1]
Category: Steven Universe (Cartoon)
Genre: Autism, Autism Spectrum, Autistic Garnet (Steven Universe), Autistic Meltdown, Autistic Pearl (Steven Universe), Autistic Ruby (Steven Universe), Autistic Sapphire (Steven Universe), Gen, Meltdown, Sensory Overload
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-06
Updated: 2018-05-07
Packaged: 2019-05-02 23:36:05
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,936
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14556036
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ValkerieRupert/pseuds/ValkerieRupert
Summary: Ruby Facet-3S1A  Cut-2PH has a gem on her left palm and is infamous on Homeworld for her 'temper tantrums'.Garnet Facet-3S1A-2R1U Cut-2PH-3BY has two gems, one on her left palm and one on her right, and has managed to avoid letting the Crystal Gems see her during her 'temper tantrums'. But the first time she can't hide away when she sees it coming and is forced to break down in front of Pearl and Amethyst, she learns something important about herself.





	1. Tantrums

Ruby Facet-3S2A Cut-1PH (or, as her coworkers called her, the Ruby with the gem on the left palm) quickly became infamous among the other Rubies she worked with for her 'temper tantrums'.

  
It happened almost every other day. Something would bother her, usually something minor and more often than not a loud or annoying noise, and she would devote all her attention to it, not being able to think about anything else for hours, and if the problem wasn't solved in time (which it very rarely was, because everyone else just viewed her as a whining low-class soldier) then the stress would reach a breaking point and she would completely break down- or, as the other Rubies called it, 'throw a massive temper tantrum to get her way'.

  
She would punch the walls and herself (and other gems if they were close enough, but they very rarely were after the first few times, since they knew to just leave her alone until she had calmed down), she would shove her arms and legs into her mouth and bite down, and she would scream until she either fell asleep from exhaustion or destroyed her body badly enough that she had to retreat to her gem.

  
One time she was having a 'temper tantrum' over the noise of several Bismuths making a tower as loudly as possible and the Morganite that she had been assigned to for the day advised that she be checked for sensory processing disorder, which she was diagnosed with only a few days later, but apart from that, higher class gems would dismiss her distress as being a childish Ruby who was trying to get her way and would soon learn her place in the world, and the other Rubies all hated her but none of them dared ask Blue Diamond to do anything about her. It was a miracle that the higher class gems never took these episodes seriously; if Blue Diamond had actually stopped to think about Ruby's behavior instead of just assuming she was a whiner, then Ruby would have almost immediately been tested for autism, which by the standards of Homeworld was a 'defect', and a 'defect' that was interfering with her ability to do her job enough that she would have been shattered on diagnosis.

  
Once she met Sapphire, joined the Crystal Gems and became part of the permanent fusion Garnet, things got a lot better. Sapphire was more likely to respond to stress by completely shutting down, isolating herself and being totally unaware of everything happening around her, and so Garnet would very rarely break down like Ruby did so often. When it did happen, Garnet was able to see it coming beforehand and isolate herself so that nobody saw her- and, more importantly, so her friends were safe. Sapphire's pacifistic tendencies made Garnet's 'temper tantrums' a lot less violent than Ruby's, and if she hurt anybody then it was most likely going to be herself, but the Ruby side of her was still terrified of how she lost control of herself and not sure whether her friends would be safe around her.

  
Finding Garnet in the midst of one of these 'temper tantrums' was very rare, but the first time it happened, everything changed.

  
By some miracle she had managed to keep them hidden from the other Crystal Gems until Rose was pregnant. By this time, Greg was insistent that Rose had to keep herself safe, Rose was constantly craving human foods (which was especially odd as hunger was a completely new feeling for the gems- Amethyst enjoyed eating, but she didn't feel an urge to eat, she just did it for fun), and Garnet more than anyone was becoming aware of the fact that they were going to have to learn to cope without Rose, and so she, Pearl and Amethyst were going on their first gem mission without Rose.

  
All they were doing was finding a corrupted gem, poofing it, bubbling it and sending it back to the temple. They had done it dozens of times, and it wasn't as if Rose was the one doing all the work while they sat back and relaxed; sure, there were times where Rose did most of the work, but there were also times where Pearl, Garnet or even Amethyst did most of it.

  
And yet here they were, running around lke idiots as they tried to get the corrupted gem under control.

  
Maybe it was the fact that this particular gem had the abilty to shoot lazer beams that, while being completely harmless (Amethyst even thought they felt nice when they hit her), were bright enough to temporarily blind all of them and cause Garnet's eyes a great deal of pain even despite the visor she wore, or maybe it was the fact that this was their first mission without Rose, but either way, the situation was completely out of control.

  
Well, it wasn't completely out of control. Nobody had been badly injured and nothing had been destroyed, so it was going pretty well so far. Until the corrupted gem monster made the mistake of leaping towards Amethyst.

  
Amethyst instinctively pushed it away from her, but used a little bit too much force and ended up pushing it towards Garnet. The impact knocked Garnet to the ground, her visor falling off as she felt the gem on her right palm being scratched by the sharp rocks she landed on, and the gem monster was still on top of her.

  
She tried to crawl away but before she could move her entire range of vision was filled by a blinding white light. It had hurt her eyes before but without her visor it was excrutiating; she screwed her eyes shut but it made her way through her eyelids, seeming to get brghter every second. She screamed in pain, pushing the monster away from her and clutching her injured hand, completely unaware of everything else that was happening. All she could think about was the pain.


	2. Chapter 2

  
She didn't notice when Amethyst tied the monster up with her whip, or when Pearl destroyed its physical form with a quick stab through the eye, or when Amethyst poofed it and sent it back to the temple. The two stared at Garnet, confused. Amethyst nudged Pearl in the place where her ribs would be if she had any. "Is it just me, or does she look like you when you're having a meltdown?"

  
Pearl nodded slightly but didn't verbally respond. Instead she nervously stepped forward. "Umm...Garnet? Are you okay?"

Silence.

"We got rid of the corrupted gem monster. It's okay now, nothing's going to hurt you..."

Slowly but surely, Garnet opened her eyes and stood up, shaking. Both of her teammates were staring at her with open eyes; Amethyst was rendered speechless by what she had seen, while Pearl nervously asked, after a long silence, "Are you hurt?"

She held up her right arm. "My gem- Well, Sapphire's gem- I scratched it on the rocks when I fell..."

A look of sympathy came over Pearl's face. "That looks painful. Come on, we'd better get you back to Rose so she can heal you..."

When a gem is seriously cracked, the gem's consciousness and form is too unstable to feel pain, so mild cracks and scratches to the gem were just about the most painful things a gem could experience. At the moment Garnet was shaking all over from the pain combined with the terror from the monster attacking her, and it took everything she had not to break down on the floor screaming again. And yet despite the excrutiating pain tearing through the gem on her palm, Garnet couldn't deny that the worst injury she had sustained today had been the blow to her pride.

 

"Umm, Garnet? May I ask you a few things?"

Garnet looked up. "Go ahead."

Pearl sat down next to her friend. "That...thing...that happened today, when the corrupted gem attacked you...do things like that happen often?"

Garnet paused, wondering whether to answer. But eventually she realized that she couldn't lie to her friend, and muttered, "Sometimes."  
She noticed that Pearl was still looking at her curiously, and added, "It used to happen during the war, but I use my future vision to know when it would happen and go somewhere where nobody would see me."

"Okay," said Pearl, not seeming to pick up on the fact that Garnet clearly didn't want to talk about it. "What about Ruby and Sapphire? Have they ever broken down like that?"

"Ruby used to all the time back on Homeworld," Garnet said tersely, wondering when Pearl would pick up on the fact that she clearly didn't want to talk about it.

"What about Sapphire? Has she ever done that?"

"No."

"Okay, have you, Ruby or Sapphire ever just completely shut down due to something that was distressing you?"

"Yes, Sapphire has."

"Right," muttered Pearl, looking around for a piece of paper she could write this down with before deciding it would be easier to just remember it. "Have you ever heard of Sensory Processing Disorder?"

"Ruby has it," she answered quickly, without any hint of emotion of inflection in her voice. "Sapphire probably does too."

"Thanks...Have you, Ruby or Sapphire ever just...sort of...stopped talking? I mean, have you ever found yourself unable to talk for unexplained reasons?"

"A few times." Garnet answered tersely, and Pearl (finally) recognized that she wasn't enjoying the conversation, mentally noting that she had better get this over with quickly before Garnet got more uncomfortable.

"One more question: What do you think of eye contact?"

"It's painful."

"Okay, thanks, Garnet...I'm sorry I had to have this talk with you, but it's the only way I could know for sure...This might come as a bit of a shock to you, but...I think you're most likely autistic."

Garnet blinked. "What?"

"I think you're autistic."

"I- But I'm- I can't be-"

"Shh," Pearl interupted, failing to realize how patronizing she seemed. "What Amethyst and I witnessed today is called an autistic meltdown. It's when you're too overwhelmed and you lose control of yourself."

"But I-"

She cut herself off mid-sentence, realizing she didn't have an argument against being autistic. She thought about it for a few moments. It seemed shocking, but when she really thought about it, it sort of made sense. It explained her conversational skills (or lack therof), her tone of voice (or lack therof), and so many of her odd quirks that she had just assumed were normal until somebody told her otherwise.

"That's not a bad thing." added Pearl. "Autistic gems are different, but they're not worse or less than allistic gems. It just means we'll have to work harder to accommodations for you. In fact, we shouldn't have to put in too much effort, most undiagnosed autistic gems will start to accommodate for themselves without realizing it, and their friends will go along with it because the autistic gem treats it as normal-"

"You're infodumping." Thanks to Pearl, Garnet knew that autistic people tended to become extremely fascinated with a certain subject, called their 'special interest', and often infodump about their special interests without realizing that the others weren't interested. Autism had been a long-held special interest for Pearl after the war for a while; though she was now using interest and picking up her old special interest of sword fighting, she still had a great deal of knowledge and enthusiasm about it.  
"Oh, sorry-"

"No," said Garnet, grinning. "Keep going. I want to hear more."


End file.
